The extraordinary new Lucas Davenport thriller from #1 "New York Times"-bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner John Sandford. The night after the fourth of July, Layton Carlson Jr., of Red Wing, Minnesota, finally got lucky. And unlucky. He'd picked the perfect spot to lose his virginity to his girlfriend, an abandoned farmyard in the middle of cornfields: nice, private, and quiet. The only problem was . . . something smelled bad--like, "really "bad. He mentioned it to a county deputy he knew, and when the cop took a look, he found a body stuffed down a cistern. And then another, and another. By the time Lucas Davenport was called in, the police were up to fifteen bodies and counting. And as if that wasn't bad enough, when Lucas began to investigate, he made some disturbing discoveries of his own. The victims had been killed over a great many years, one every summer, regular as clockwork. How could this have happened without anybody noticing? Because one thing was for sure: the killer had to live close by. He was probably even someone they saw every day. . . .

Publishers Weekly® Reviews

Reviewed in:
Publishers Weekly,
page
.

Review Date:
2014-03-31

Reviewer:
Staff

In bestseller Sandford’s suspenseful 24th Lucas Davenport novel (after 2013’s Silken Prey), an amorous couple’s chance discovery of a body in an abandoned cistern near Red Wing, Minn., becomes a major investigation when authorities begin excavating and the body count reaches 17 and threatens to go higher. With Bob Shaffer of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension heading the investigation, and Davenport and Goodhue County deputy Catrin Mattsson assisting, they begin looking for a serial killer/rapist who’s been operating for at least 10 years in the cluster of small towns near the cistern. When a lead investigator is killed and another targeted, the pressure builds. Meanwhile, a pair of sadists plot deadly and taunting actions to confuse the investigators, and Davenport searches desperately for a clue that will help narrow the search to manageable numbers. As always, Sandford has tricks to play to confound readers before the tension rises and leads to a violent and surprising conclusion. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (May)

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